A Ballad of Deathclaws and Shotguns
by Centralmetric01
Summary: The Lone Wanderer is an unstoppable killing machine. Despite that fact, people still try to accompany him on his journeys. One ex-raider manages to survive long enough for him to come to that realization.


Jericho wished he had never come along with the legendary Lone Wanderer. It was more trouble than it was worth.

"Can we just get the fuck out of here?"

"Not until I kill everything!"

Jericho looked around him uneasily. _'This cave's got way too many deathclaws for me.' _He looked back to see Travis struggling to fit yet another unfortunate deathclaw's hand in his bulging backpack.

Travis finally managed to make it fit inside and sighed. "Maybe I should make a leather jacket out of deathclaw hide, it would look badass." He grimaced as he saw a few holes in his Brahmin hide backpack. "Maybe a backpack as well."

Jericho had long-mastered the ability to tune out his companion's babbling. He just wished he'd learned sooner. _'Then again, maybe I should pay attention.' _He remembered when they travelled to the Regulator's HQ and Travis told him to stay outside as usual. Jericho couldn't help but feel threatened by the sharp glares turned his way.

When Travis returned, Jericho was busy dodging around panicked brahmin as he shot at an albino radscorpion. The bug wandered up to him as he idly ate a squirrel on a stick. Travis just shook his head slightly and threw a grenade that blew off the radscorp's legs.

After Jericho mumbled out a barely audible 'Thank you.' he noticed that Travis' pack was slightly open. Open enough to see the ears where there were once fingers.

Then Jericho walked into a wall. An amused voice snapped the rest of him out of his trip on memory lane.

"Sorry to break this to you kid, but you don't have superpowers. That wall isn't going to break apart anytime soon. How about you follow me into this here exit?"

Anger and embarassment slipped through his stoic expression. The weakness was momentary as he slipped back into a permanent sneer.

The two continued to the entrance in complete silence. Jericho gathered up what proffesionalism he had left to make sure he didn't just run to the light like a madman. He had had enough of not seeing what was around the corner.

To their silent surprise, a small group of deathclaws were right outside the entrance. Travis tapped Jericho on the shoulder and the ex-raider sent a withering glare right back at him.

Travis pantomined a gun and made little pew noises that were aimed at the deathclaws. The urge to throttle him was rising up in the back of his head. Jericho shoved it down and pointed at two different places that they could sneak to.

Travis recognized the ploy and shook his head. Before Jericho could forcible suggest sneaking past, Travis jumped into the fray.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Jericho spewed out all the expletives that he knew and a few he made up himself as he took out his shotgun and started firing away. Travis managed to startle the deathclaws long enough to shove a grenade into the mouth of the closest one.

Travis managed to dodge the flailing claws and pulled out two pistols as the deathclaws head exploded and covered the front of Travis' clothing in brains and blood. His face showed clear disgust as he backpedalled away from the deathclaws.

The part of his mind that wanted to throttle Travis was now shouting in his mind. _'He is dual fucking wielding! With two heavy pistols! Against deathclaws!' _He vented his frustration on one of the deathclaws that was foolish enough to turn his back on him.

Only three of the deathclaws were dead. Two still remained and one of them was rushing toward him. He raised his shotgun and fired point blank. *_click._

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" He was cut off by the flat of a deathclaw's claw smashing against his face.

Jericho felt his shotgun knocked out of his hands as he tried to use it as a makeshift shield. Jumping back, he drew a combat knife Travis gave him before he started amputating deathclaws. He dashed at the abomination, almost flinching when a claw tore at his shoulder, and started stabbing.

The deathclaw was slightly thrown off from the surprise tackle and stumbled back a step. Whatever rational force that kept the ex-raider together vanished and in his place, animosity filled the void.

The stabs to the head made the deathclaw roar in anguish and start flailing his claws in an effort to stay alive. In response to that, he just started stabbing faster.

Eventually, the deathclaw was killed by the numerous stabs to his head. The corpse fell forward and pinned Jericho to the floor. Jericho was barely alive by now. He was covered with slash wounds. The blurry edges around his line of sight gave him the strength to weakly reach at a stimpak on his belt.

Most of the blurriness disappeared after he pricked himself with the needle. _'I have a feeling that most of the people who'll stare at me aren't there to see my good looks.' _Grunting, he shoved the deathclaw off him and crawled to a nearby wall.

That failed though, when he felt a boot prodding him. When he looked up, he saw the leather apparel of his companion. He groaned.

"Fuck you Trav."

"Fuck you too. Now let's get outta here. These hands will make awesome weapons. Awesome weapons equals awesome combat."

This time, Jericho stopped quelling the urge to kill him. He waved away the offered stims. Better for him to be imagining different ways on how to kill your one-man army companion than to actually attempt to.

Jericho managed to get up and the two set off in silence. As one of them hummed a quiet tune, the other focused on one question in his mind that needed answers.

**Why the fuck do people want to help this guy?**

* * *

**'Tis I! Centralmetric01! Just decided to post this for who knows what reason. I am totally not procrastinating from reviewing for the exams in a few days. No really, I'm not.**

**Read & Review!**


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